PAUL BOGHOSSIAN
Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism
Paul Boghossian, Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism, Oxford University Press, 2006, 152pp., $24.95 (hbk), ISBN 019928718X.
Reviewed by Richard Bärnthaler, University of Vienna
Chapter 1, Introduction, elaborates on the main claim that Boghossian seeks to refute as the book progresses: the doctrine of equal validity, which states, "There are many radically different, yet 'equally valid' ways of knowing the world" (p.2). In doing so, Boghossian explains the ideological (i.e. post-colonial) and intellectual (e.g. feminist epistemology) origins of what he terms a social dependence conception of knowledge.
In Chapter 2, The Social Construction of Knowledge, Boghossian defines what it means for our beliefs to count as knowledge; he states that a thinker S knows p iff:
1. S believes p
2. S is justified in believing p
3. p is true
Subsequently, Boghossian identifies three positions of the constructivist about knowledge: constructivism about facts (Chapter 3 and 4), constructivism about justification (Chapter 5, 6, and 7), and constructivism about rational explanation (Chapter 8). He stresses that the 'equal validity claim' might seem plausible "to anyone who finds even one of these constructivist theses true" (p.23).
In Chapter 3, Constructing the Facts, Boghossian argues that, in the picture of fact constructivism, "our concepts work like cookie cutters: they carve the world up into facts by drawing boundaries" (p.34); the reasons for drawing are always pragmatic. Boghossian, however, argues that even in terms of this picture there must be some description-independent facts to even make sense. Additionally, he identifies three problems that should lead the reader to refute fact constructivism: the problem of causation (i.e. some objects' existence antedates ours), the problem of conceptual competence (i.e. some concepts have the very purpose of designating things independent of us), and the problem of disagreement (i.e. a violation of non-contradiction).
In Chapter 4, Relativizing the Facts, Boghossian discusses Rorty's claim that, even if objects exist independently of us, one can never claim certain propositions to be simply true, but only that they are true relative to our preferred way of talking. Subsequently, Boghossian focuses on the domain of morality to construe a moral relativistic position:
1) Moral non-absolutism: There are no absolute moral facts which can confirm absolute moral judgments
2) Moral relationsim: If S's moral judgments are to have any prospect of being true, we must not construe his utterance of the form "It is wrong of P to A" as expressing the claim It is wrong of P to A, but rather as expressing the claim: According to moral framework M, that I, S, accept, it is wrong of P to A.
3) Moral pluralism: There are many alternative moral frameworks, but no facts by virtue of which one of them is more correct than any of the others.
Boghossian understands Rorty to generalize such a relativistic conception to all domains (i.e. a global relativism). Boghossian rejects this position as global relativists implicitly accept absolute "facts about what theories different communities accept" (p.54) and thus undermine their own position. At the same time, if the global relativist does not accept this kind of absolute facts, she will always end up in an expression of infinitary propositions. Due to the considerations in Chapter 3 and 4, Boghossian understands the strongest case for the relativist to be a relativism about justification and not about facts in the sense of Rorty.
In Chapter 5, Epistemic Relativism Defended, Boghossian emphasizes the importance of fundamental principles, which "can be justified, if at all, only by appeal to themselves" (S.68), in constituting and epistemic system; observation, induction, and deduction constitute examples of this sort. Furthermore, Boghossian introduces two cases on which he continues to work throughout the book. First, Galileo vs. Cardinal Bellarmine encompasses the conflict between the Copernican and the Ptolemaic worldview on which Rorty commented that, even if there are facts of the matter about the heavens, there are no absolute facts "about which of those views it would be most rational for someone to have" (p.63). Secondly, the Azande Oracle discusses an 'epistemic tool' used by the tribe of the Azande, namely a chicken-oracle. "Instead of reasoning via explanation, induction and so forth, they seem to employ the principle" (p.71):
(Oracle) For certain propositions p, believing p is prima facie justified if a Poison Oracle says that p.
Boghossian preliminarily accepts that both the "Azande and the Vatican circa 1630 represent the use of fundamentally different epistemic systems" and that both are "genuine alternatives to ours" in the sense that "they yield conflicting verdicts on what it is justified to believe" (p.72/73). Following this, Boghossian construes epistemic relativism to be based on the same three positions as his construal of moral relativism: epistemic non-absolutism, epistemic relationism, and epistemic pluralism. Furthermore, he argues that the case for non-absolutism depends on two premises. First, "if there are absolute epistemic facts, it must be possible to come to have justified beliefs about what those facts are" (p.75). Secondly, "we cannot hope to demonstrate the correctness of an epistemic system by using that very system" (p.78). Boghossian, therefore, preliminary concludes, "If these considerations are right, then it looks as though, even by our own lights, we cannot hope to settle the question which epistemic system is correct, once it has been raised" (p.79).
In Chapter 6, Epistemic Relativism Rejected, Boghossian argues that the relativist's replacement of particular epistemic judgments "by judgments about what is entailed by the epistemic systems that we happen to accept" (p.85) brings about a situation in which general epistemic principles must be false. Boghossian rejects that anyone would commit herself to an epistemic system that relies on false (or incomplete) principles. In the same vein, he rejects the idea to consider epistemic systems as sets of imperatives emphasizing the problem of how one should conceive the relationship between an imperative and a proposition. Finally, with regards to the epistemic relativist's pluralist clause, Boghossian states, "Every epistemic system will have a possible alternative that contradicts it. (...) If one of them is deemed to say something false, the other will have to be deemed to have said something true. Under those circumstances, it’s hard to see how it could be right to say that there are no facts by virtue of which one epistemic system could be more correct than any other" (p.91)
In Chapter 7, The Paradox Resolved, and after demonstrating arguments for epistemic relativism (i.e. norm-circularity of justification) as well as against it, Boghossian makes a case against epistemic relativism showing that it depends heavily on two claims:
Possible: If there are absolute epistemic facts, it is possible to arrive at justified beliefs about what they are.
Justification: It is not possible to arrive at justified beliefs about what absolute epistemic facts there are. (p.96)
He asserts that, in fact, we can arrive at justified beliefs about what absolute epistemic facts there are and thus rejects Justification. To demonstrate this, Boghossian states that Justification is based on:
Encounter: If we were to encounter an actual, coherent, fundamental, genuine alternative to our epistemic system, C2, whose track record was impressive enough to make us doubt the correctness of our own system, C1, we would not be able to justify C1 over C2, even by our own lights. (p. 101)
As a result, Justification is substituted through:
Justification*: If a legitimate doubt were to arise about the correctness of our ordinary epistemic principles, we would not be able to arrive at justified beliefs about their correctness. (p. 101)
Based on that, Boghossian reformulates the relativist's argument (p. 102):
1. If there are absolutely true epistemic principles, then we know what they are.
2. If a legitimate doubt has arisen about the correctness of our own epistemic principles, we do not know which epistemic principles are objectively true.
3. Legitimate doubt about the correctness of our own epistemic principles has arisen (because we have encountered alternative epistemic systems whose track record is impressive enough to make us doubt ours).
Hence,
4. We do not know which absolute epistemic principles are true. Hence,
5. There are no absolutely true epistemic principles.
Boghossian understands the main problem to lie with the third premise. He argues, "Bellarmine uses exactly the same epistemic system we use. About the heavens, though, we diverge we use our eyes, he consults the Bible. (...) But doesn’t he use his eyes to note that the sun is shining, or that the moon is half full, or that the clear night-time Roman sky is littered with stars?" (p. 103104) As a result, "it is hard to understand the dispute between Galileo and Bellarmine as a dispute between epistemic systems which disagree on the fundamental epistemic principles. It is rather a dispute, within a common epistemic system, as to the origins and nature of the Bible" (p.105). Boghossian uses similar remarks for the Azande case
Finally, in Chapter 8, Epistemic Reasons and the Explanation of Belief, Boghossian turns to constructivism about rational explanation differentiating between strong and weak constructivism. His rejection of symmetry about rationality and arguments against Kuhn's underdetermination of belief by evidence as well as against the Duhem-Quine thesis lead him to reject the overall statement "that we can never explain belief by appeal to our epistemic reasons alone" (p.128)
This short, provocative, and readable book establishes a lucid - though overly simplistic - support for common sense against the relativist. I now turn to some brief objections, but, due to the restricted scope of this review, I will mainly consider chapter 4, 5, 6, and 7. My objections are
predominantly based on Boghossian's construal of the epistemic relativist's position. The main question, therefore, is: is the relativist, after all, committed to the truth conditions that Boghossian claims that she must be committed to?
First, Boghossian's argument against epistemic relativism heavily relies on the idea of equal validity of epistemic systems (which is tantamount to his construal of the claim of epistemic pluralism). It cannot be emphasized enough, however, that the equal validity claim is not necessarily part of the epistemic relativist's position. Cart-carrying relativists such as Bloor or Feyerabend have vigorously rejected the idea of equal validity. Whilst not denying that equal validity is accepted in rare cases, such as beauty or taste, it cannot be formulated as an indispensable condition for relativism. 'Symmetry', which is necessary for all forms of relativism, can also be construed outside the idea of equal validity. Barnes and Bloor (1982, p.27), for example, argue that "the relativist, like everyone else, is under the necessity to sort out beliefs, accepting some and rejecting others. He will naturally have preferences and these will typically coincide with those of other in his locality." In this context, Barnes and Bloor (ibid.) make a case for 'equal contingency': "(T)here are no context-free or super-cultural norms of rationality", but there may indeed be local causes of credibility that lead actors to choose an epistemic system over another or reject particular epistemic systems. Put differently, epistemic relativists are not obliged to commit themselves to an 'anything-goes-scenario' as Boghossian seems to suggest.
Second and related to Chapter 4 and 5, it seems questionable if Boghossian provides the epistemic relativist 'with the strongest hand' as he claims to do. In his construal of epistemic relationism, Boghossian commits himself to a metaphysical form of relativism as he formulates it in a way that inherently makes reference to a specific group, culture, or epistemic system: the sentence "E justifies B" cannot be understood as expressing the claim E justifies belief B, but rather as expressing the claim According to epistemic system C, that I, S, accept, information E justifies belief B (p. 73). Following MacFarlane (2004), the epistemic relativist, however, has a better option, namely to formulate the claim semantically. In this sense, the relativist can insist that what has to be relativized is the truth-predicate and, therefore, it becomes a claim about language. Insofar, and in contrast to Boghossian's epistemic relationism, the claim "E justifies B" can be understood as expressing the claim E justifies belief B This claim is true or false only relative to some standard of assessment, but it expresses a complete proposition (even without context). Boghossian rightly claims that under his construal - which includes the epistemic relationist clause - the epistemic relativist loses the element of conflict or genuine disagreement ('My claim is true in my context and false in your context'). The semantic construal of the relativist's position, in contrast, can uphold the element of genuine disagreement and is, thus, the more potent option. It is also of interest in my next objection
Third, if we accept a semantic version of relativism as suggested above, then, and contrary to Boghossian's claim in Chapter 6, first order judgments would be relatively true rather than absolutely false. Assuming this, the following question arises: what are the general principles and what are they relative to? Through our semantic turn, we have already eliminated the alternative that they could be absolutely false. Boghossian's rejection of incomplete principles, general imperatives, and relatively true principles that would lead to an infinite regress does not constitute the whole story though. First, indeed, the relativist can claim that she can make sense of incomplete systems. Secondly, we can draw an analogy to the domain of morality. Instead of taking morals as rules, which are applied to certain situations, it is a fruitful approach to focus on Dancy's (2013) moral particularism. In this view, we do not reason through rules, but through analogies. Put differently, when we think morally we do not have certain rules in mind, but rather similar cases from the past. If we take Dancys' particularist approach to be correct, we can forget about Boghossian's objection; we are not following rules, we apply analogies and have certain dispositions. Thirdly, an infinite regress is not necessarily problematic and there are several
different ways to argue for that; I will only hint at some. One option, which has already been touched upon, is based on Barnes and Bloor (1982), who argue that, at some point, we reach justifiers that only have local credibility; this does not imply, however, that these justifiers justify themselves. Another option is based on infinitism (see for example Klein 2007), which argues that epistemic justification is always infinite, but that this is not problematic as we always - due to pragmatic reasons - only 'extract' a certain 'piece'. And yet another option is a pro-circular argument. Coherence theories, for example, argue that the best the relativist can get is coherence.
Lastly and related to Chapter 7, on Boghossian's account, fundamental epistemic principles are decisive for the characterization of an epistemic system and its acknowledgment as such. However, the relativist can argue that, in reference to Dancy's particularism, exemplars on which one draws in an analogy are always justified by other exemplars. This view would suggest a rejection of Boghossian's foundationalist 'pyramid system' and support the application of something like a 'raft-system' (Sosa 1980) that has no absolute starting point and is, therefore, always relative.
References
Barnes, B., Bloor, D., 1982. Relativism, Rationalism and the Sociology of Knowledge, in: Hollis, M., Lukes, S. (Eds.), Rationality and Relativism. Blackwell.
Boghossian, P., 2007. Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism, 1 edition. ed. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Dancy, J., 2013. Moral Particularism, in: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.
Klein, P., 2007. Human knowledge and the infinite progress of reasoning. Philos Stud 134, 1–17. doi:10.1007/s11098-006-9012-9
MacFarlane, J., 2005. The assessment sensitivity of knowledge attributions. Oxford studies in epistemology 1, 197–233.
Sosa, E., 1980. The raft and the pyramid: Coherence versus foundations in the theory of knowledge. Midwest studies in philosophy 5, 3–26.